The Final Keyblade: Book Three
by DeltaFire
Summary: With Jason's Keyblade gone, the preparations for a counterattack move slowly, as the Organization begins to close the noose on the entire universe.


Chapter 1

Remorseful Survivor

It took us all time to recover.

Kalex, not from our world, felt the least devastation.

Jason still won't leave the tent, and I haven't seen him since he heard the news.

As for me, I don't know how I managed. My emotions were all over the place, but none of that felt close, tangible. I couldn't even think about Raxadus without spacing out. Nothing I dwelled on solved anything, but it didn't hurt me either.

I have trouble deciding if that's okay.

Kurai explained later how he knew Jason, and gave me information on where we were. Apparently, the Keyblade Army was an actual thing. Most of the people here had Keyblades, of all kinds. Those who didn't still worked in some trade involving Keyblades, like creating key chains. The whole thing was surreal, when you thought about it. A couple days later, I asked Kurai about it.

"The Keyblade Army started a really long time ago, but it was a lot smaller than it is now, and it was under a different name. The basic idea was relatively simple, protect the world order and fight threats in the balance of the worlds,"

"Isn't that what the order does?" I asked.

"They're more damage control, minimizing problems as they happen. We stop them entirely. The order does ask us to clear out uninhabited worlds from time to time,"

"Hm?"

"Yeah. The immense number of Keyblades has the Heartless flocking to anywhere we go, and we use that to purge clusters of worlds of Heartless. We just have to go to a world with no people, and then wait, like, ten minutes. After maybe a couple weeks, we deem the entire radius clear. Then we move on,"

"It takes a couple _weeks?"_

"Well… Stragglers and all. The longer we stay in one area, the wider the circle that the Heartless are pouring from. The longer we stay, the safer everyone is. Also, though it's been rare, we've sometimes been asked to clear whole zones for relocation,"

"Relocation?"

"When a world is destroyed, most of the denizens go to Traverse Town. A good majority die, but the largest casualty report we've ever received only cited the death toll as fifty five percent of the population,"

"Wait… So Earth has survivors?"

"A place as huge as that, I have no doubts. Chances are the death toll will be about… thirty percent, maybe thirty five if we're being morbid,"

"That many people…,"

"A greater percent might die from mass hysteria, or do something stupid because they think they've passed on or something. The order once accidently formed a planet-wide cult through poor wording,"

"Are the survivors at Traverse Town now?" I asked, heart pounding.

"They should be. I don't think the facilities could accommodate that many people, but they've managed to split the population among the different branches in the past. They all eventually get relocated to newly purged worlds, and we try to facilitate the peace between them for about a few years. Then we just leave them be,"

"Can we go now?" I pleaded.

Kurai thought about it for a second. "I'll contact Redwood. He controls the main branch, so he should have the biggest split of the people. I'll see what I can do from there. He might have kept records on the divides, so even if who you're looking for isn't there, there's a chance we can track them down,"

"Tell me as soon as you get confirmation," I said.

"You got it," he nodded, jogging through the camp, supposedly to some communications tent.

I thought over what Kurai said. The Heartless business sure was real. In his wandering, he found the border of the camp, and a sort of border patrol was beating back a moderately big perimeter of Heartless. They weren't in any perceivable danger though, as the Heartless seemed to come in waves, with lulls in between. I assume they rotate patrol, but at what intervals, I'd never know.

I found myself walking towards Jason's tent, and my brain caught up with my legs. Jason should have been the first to know about this.

I walked in, seeing the familiar cot off to the side. Jason looked to be asleep, and he finally could move to where he could sleep on his side, facing away from me.

"I'm not hungry," he said, clearly and concisely. That took me aback for a second, but I guess he must have had a nurse of some sort. Either that or some soldier was just his meal time buddy.

"It's me," I said, settling in a corner farther from him. Jason turned to see me, then plopped his head back into his pillow.

"What do you want?" he said curtly.

"The order probably has saved some refugees," I said, letting my words sink in.

"From where?" Jason said, still rudely, but with curiosity leaking through the façade.

"You know where," I answered, "Kurai told me that he'd keep me informed. As luck would have it, the death toll shouldn't be as high as we assumed,"

"And what did we assume?"

"One hundred percent," I responded.

He mulled over this for a few seconds. "Where do they go?"

"To worlds the Keyblade Army purges of Heartless. Apparently, that's their main job,"

"We are going there as soon as possible,"

"I have no objection,"

Jason sat up without much difficulty, and stretched out. He suddenly winced in pain, and then looked at me expectantly.

"Cura," I said, green energy surrounding Jason. I always found that casting Cure left an almost undetectable scent of mint. It was weird.

Jason jumped out of the cot, staggering for a second, but otherwise fine. He inspected the few remaining bandages, then shrugged, pulling on a shirt over them.

"I'm going to get out of here, meet up with me later," I said, stepping out. Jason grunted in agreement. Once I left the tent I saw him walk out in another direction. It dawned on me how he even knew where anything was, but I couldn't be bothered. I needed to find someone else.

Kalex was practicing in a cleared out stretch of flat soil the other soldiers called the training ground. There was definitely enough room for others, but the area was pretty much devoid of anyone other than her. It wasn't like this place was the exclusive area for training, people were sparring all over this place, but I guessed Kalex's yo-yo saws were the only thing people needed to steer clear. That, and her coat.

I guess the Organization was a problem for them, because I'd heard descriptions of a couple members through random chatter. So far, they seemed to be talking about Derix the most, which, given Derix's tendencies towards mass destruction, made some sense, but I'd also heard about others. Kurai had asked me early on for a full list of members and details about them. I gave him what I knew, and he seems genuinely surprised to hear that Xerin was dead, and Forix had defected. I guess he assumed we'd been a cohesive unit this whole time.

"So, the acting members are… Chaxis, No. X, Derix, Dux, Raxadus, The Three, and Lagaulixa?" he said, looking over the full list, marking in some notes.

"Yeah, but I don't know anything about The Three,"

"Nothing?"

"Other than this: They are the three most powerful members, other than Raxadus himself. They aren't often around, but I used to pass them in the halls occasionally. They never said anything, holding an air of mystery and dread. The only mission I'd ever heard about with them tied to it was an extermination of all the Heartless on a world, and I checked. This world was literally covered in Heartless, as close to a nest as you could get. The completion time for the mission was listed as four hours," I said, a shiver rolling down both my and Kurai's spine.

"That's… not possible,"

"I know, but it happened. Anyway, anytime I passed them, they creeped me the #$% out," I finished.

Even with our ties cut from the Organization, the soldiers tended to avoid us, though it was usually pretty subtle. Sideways glances, the occasional circle forming around us at the dining tables, it was all there. I would have changed my clothes, but my coat felt like a part of me, and extension of myself. Plus, these were some hard coats to get. Kalex has a spare of her coat, but she only brought me the one on my back. It almost makes me regret ditching my last coat, from my first fight with Dux.

Almost.

Kalex's style seemed stilted. She wasn't launching her blades, but I could call that not trying to kill anyone. Her movements were hesitant, and she restricted her every slash. I walked up to her and summoned my Keyblade. She didn't even notice me, so when she swept her arm in an arc, I casually blocked it.

She jumped back, saws hitting the ground, then disappearing in pillars of light.

"Oh, hey," she giggled, breaking the tension.

"What's with you?" I said, getting right to the point.

"What?" she said, not allowing any break.

"You're fighting like you were made of wood, you immediately dropped your weapons when confronted, and now you're acting like I wouldn't notice," I listed off, raising a finger for each.

Kalex looked down for a second, then looked back at me. Her eyes were watering, and her shoulders shook. I quickly grabbed her in an embrace before she could crumple, and she instinctively wrapped her arms around me.

"I-I… It was Dux… and then," she stuttered, choking back tears the entire time.

"This is about what happened to Dux, right?" I whispered, slowly rocking back and forth, with Kalex following along absent-mindedly. She quickly breathed out a yes before breaking down into sobs again.

"It's okay, it's okay," I assure her, never missing a beat.

"But he… I-I… and the blood," she continued, voice spiking up an octave at the mention of blood. I kept up my mantra, squeezing her reassuringly.

"There was nothing you could do. It was a last minute judgment call, nobodies blaming you for that," I said, voice hushed and soothing.

She didn't say anything, but it was about ten or twenty minutes before she finally left my arms.

"You going to be okay?" I said, ready to catch her if need be.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine," she said, breathing deeply. I'd heard once that crying washed away chemicals that led to unhappiness, or something like that. That's probably why crying makes people feel better, and Kalex was definitely feeling good.

"I' guessing you might want to skip the sparring?" I said, instantly regretting the jab I possibly just made.

"Yeah… do you smell that? I guess they finished preparing dinner," she replied.

"You want to go find out?" I asked.

"Let me freshen up first," she said, wiping some snot off her lip. I laughed at that, and after a second, she giggled a little bit too.

**Meanwhile…**

Could I live with this? Did I want to see the faces of all those people? Did they even know that I was the executioner of their loved ones? My loved ones?

Could I go there, knowing that my mother's eyes might not be among those judgmental stares? Could I go there, knowing they might be among them? My only wish was that I wouldn't have to make this decision. Why would I, when everyone I knew could be dead, gone. Sometimes, upon this musing, I almost wished that there were no survivors, no people to lament my mistake. But would that change anything? I didn't think I could answer that.

I walked along, body stiff from my recuperation. Some of my wounds were tangible, I could feel them, but no pain emitted, thanks to the Cura. It was a strange sensation, but the healing was already underway, so I felt the issue was pointless. Some people glanced at me, probably wondering about the newcomer. No people approached me though, so I could only deduce that my prophetic ties were never officially recognized. Did Kurai think my story was false? He definitely told them about Raxadus, so was my connection to the events undetermined? My best guess was that he didn't disclose my identity for fear of people mobbing me. At least, that made the most sense.

As I strolled, I saw Kurai speed walking past, I jogged towards him, grabbing him by the shoulder.

"Huh, oh. It's you. Glad to see you're not bedridden anymore," he said, stopping for me.

"Daxjra told me about what you said. Do you have any news on it?" I said, anticipating the worst.

"We got word from Redwood, luckily. He said he's got refugees, but in a much lower number than we originally predicted," he explained.

"What does that mean? How many survivors?," I said. It felt like a dam was filling inside me, and Kurai was the final arbiter of its destruction.

"They're still trying to get everyone to follow procedure, but the survivors only measure in the thousands,"

The number almost didn't process. Seven billion, such a large number, and its legacy is only a couple thousand people? It was a massacre of such scope that I couldn't even recognize the sheer size of it all.

"Are you okay?" Kurai asked, anticipating the worst.

"I… I need a moment," I said, trying to spot an empty space.

"Do you want to see the survivors?" he said, holding my shoulder.

I thought about it. Maybe in some delusion, I hoped that if I didn't see the actual survivors, everyone I needed to live did. Maybe I didn't want to face the cold truth. Either way, I declined. I had spent a lot of time mourning, and now I was numb. Still emotional, but this was what I expected.

"Are you sure?" he said, insistence in his voice.

"Yeah…," I replied. I just needed something to do, something to distract me, and Kurai saw that too.

"Do you want another Keyblade?" he asked, tone serious.

The question took me aback for a few seconds, then I responded with the most apt reply.

"What?"


End file.
